North Korean launch fails

(Wall Street Journal) North Korea launched a multistage rocket Friday morning, again defying countries that want it to stop pursuing advanced weapons, but it apparently blew up less than two minutes into flight and parts crashed in the Yellow Sea off South Korea.

Despite the apparent failure, the U.S. and its allies quickly condemned the launch, with the White House saying a food agreement it had reached with Pyongyang in February was dead. But the launch also appeared to deny North Korea a key propaganda victory and raised questions about the state of its ballistic missile technology.